Legislation Introduced by Congresswoman DeLauro

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108th Congress

The Children’s Mental Health Screening and Prevention Act (HR 3063) Back to Legislation

Ensuring that our children grow up healthy means more than simply focusing on their physical health -- we must focus on their mental health as well. In January 2001, the Report of the Surgeon General’s Conference on Children’s Mental Health found that while one in 10 children and teens suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause some level of impairment, only one in five of those children receive the mental health treatment they need.

Allowing these illnesses to go unidentified and untreated during childhood can lead to serious problems as the years pass. According to the National Council on Disability, "the failure to identify and treat mental disabilities between children and youth has serious consequences, including school failure, involvement with the justice system and other tragic outcomes," including "the growing problem of teen suicides and/or suicide attempts." In fact, suicide is the third leading cause of death among Americans aged 15-24. The Children’s Mental Health Screening and Prevention Act would help us begin to address this serious problem.

Create a Competitive Grant Program to Fund Ten Demonstration Projects. The bill would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Education, and the Attorney General to jointly name 10 demonstration projects to implement evidence-based preventive screening programs to detect mental illness and suicidal tendencies in school-aged children. Any child found to be suffering from a mental illness will be immediately referred for treatment in their community or at the closest possible location.

Grants would be made for a 3-year period, and could be made to any facility serving at-risk youth - such as a school, a school-based health center, a juvenile justice facility, a homeless shelter, or a youth outreach organization.

Grantees must collaborate with local mental health providers to provide further mental health assessment or treatment to young people with symptoms or indicators of mental illness.

Information Gathering. To help increase our understanding of how we can most effectively screen and treat children for mental illness, project sites will collect information on outcomes from mental health screenings and referrals for treatment.

Establish Advisory Panel. The bill establishes an advisory panel that will review the information collected and give the Secretaries and Attorney General recommendations on the use or improvement of evidence-based preventive mental health screening models.

Report to Congress. After receiving the Advisory Panel’s recommendations, the Secretaries and the Attorney General will report to Congress on the success of the program.

Authorization of Funds. The Children’s Mental Health Screening and Prevention Act authorizes $7.5 million a year for fiscal years FY2004-06.

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